For the Birds: When we're writing, we're talking to ourselves
Time-traveling & personhood
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Today’s letter ends with a new referral + reward system, a paid issue highlight, and a creative prompt.
One of the oddest (most revelatory) things about being a writer, particularly once you’ve been a writer for a sustained period of time, is the experience of going back to older things you’ve written and seeing, right there in front of your face, something you thought you’d recently discovered that was there in the writing all along.
There’s a Sartre quote I wish I could pull here—I’m 95% sure it’s from Nausea—but I can’t find my copy, so let me just show you what I mean…
Here’s an excerpt from a chapbook I published back in 2017:
“i so want to be in control—to leave right at the highest peak of someone’s love for me.”
from “Somewhere the / Shaking,” published by above/ground press
Oh. Okay. So those attachment issues I only “recently” uncovered…
Sometimes the revelation happens within a shorter timespan. Two months ago I finally, after years of procrastination, returned to a letter from a friend about a topic I’d wanted to say a few more things about. And I happened to, in the midst of clarifying my original thoughts and reiterating my friend’s brilliant ones, write this funny thing about the self:
“Multitasking…diverts the self from the moment. Rips the self away from the self.
Look: Sometimes when you’re a writer you say things—and you really mean them, their craftedness and their curiosity, with your whole heart—but you don’t know what you mean. There’s a unique kind of trust in the saying and attempting and thinking and language-ing that keeps you moving forward. I’ve built up enough of this trust in my creative channel, and the way it manifests itself on the page, to say things to the world before I fully understand the scope of their meaning. Does this sound risky to you? Scary? Irresponsible?! It feels normal and neutral in my body.
Frankly, if I waited to fully understand everything I meant before speaking to the world—which, haha, was the route I took for many years—I’d never say anything at all.
So I responded to my friend via newsletter, and in doing so I wrote that funny thing about the self.
A week later, I began struggling with a set of circumstances that I’ll go ahead and summarize as, “problems of worth.”
But then I glanced at my email and saw my previously scheduled newsletter arrive, and something made me skim it even though I knew its message, and that’s when I saw the funny thing I’d written, as if for the first time. “Rips the self away from the self.” I pulled it from its context and noticed that it wasn’t about boundaries, at least not only, but that it was also about worth. And there she was, past-moment Sarah, desperately + sneakily trying to say something to present-moment Sarah about her struggles, trying to help her notice where the mending needs to occur.
Because problems of worth are, it turns out, problems of personhood: A loss of the self.
Here’s Virginia Woolf:
“Is the true self that which stands on the pavement in January, or that which bends over the balcony in June? Am I here, or am I there? Or is the true self neither this nor that, neither here nor there, but something so varied and wandering that it is only when we give the rein to its wishes and let it take its way unimpeded that we are indeed ourselves? Circumstances compel unity; for convenience sake a man must be whole.”
I am trying, always and forever, to catch up with my writing.
But I am also trying to slow down and listen to what’s already there.
If this all sounds disorienting, it’s because it is! And I say this not to contribute to bad myths re: the torture of the writing life—it’s a lush, therapeutic one, and it pairs well with healing and joy—but simply to say: yep, it’s also very weird.
Let me close with one more anecdote. A few weeks ago, I went to my local coffee shop to do a kind of “newsletter audit.” It was the opposite of creative work: I was counting things and tallying others, I was pulling out key words, I was moving quickly across issue after issue.
Then something caught my eye, from issue #55, “This one’s about edges,” dated July 27th of this year, so I re-read the whole thing. It consists of three mini essays, and I found the second one so moving that I partially broke my social media fast in order to share it in full on IG.1
A week later, unrelatedly, I stood at the altar in our bedroom, asking for tangible advice about a fork in the road regarding a submission opportunity. Weighing the pros and cons—this or that, this or that—I drew a card, which led me back to the moon, still full in Gemini at the time. I felt pretty clear on what this was, and what that was, I just didn’t know how to choose, which one to set down and which one to claim. Finally I blurted out, in front of two photographs of Boots, two bird bones, two selenite towers, and numerous tchotchkes I’ve had since childhood: “Why would I do both?”
It was a rhetorical question. Except I heard, in immediate response, my own previously written words: “…both. Both, both, both. The most empathetic word. The most boundary-dissolving word.” Yes, from issue #55.
I’d been looking for an answer that I couldn’t see, and then I got out of my own way (divination), and then I got back in front of my self (worth). I chose both options.
I feel good about my choice.
Writing is how we get in front of ourselves! Not to grab the reins but, with a whole and varied heart, more fully greet what they’re guiding.
Share For the Birds, get creative rewards!
Substack has introduced a new referral system, and I think it’s a neat way to organically reach more readers while acknowledging the relationships I’ve already built with current ones—aka, you!
Here’s how referrals work:
Every time you refer someone who signs up for this newsletter (at any level: free, paid, or Founding Member), it counts toward one of three “reward tiers.”
When 5 new subscribers sign-up as a result of your referrals, you earn a free three-month paid subscription.
When 11 new subscribers sign-up as a result of your referrals, you also earn a free six-month paid subscription.
When 17 new subscribers sign-up as a result of your referrals, you also earn a free 30-minute creativity chat with me! Think of this like a mini coaching session <3
Get started by using the “Refer a friend” button above, clicking the “Share” button on any future post, or visiting the “Leaderboard” tab on my Substack homepage and grabbing your unique referral link.
Thanks for showing up in this weird, earnest corner of the digital world and helping me hold space for creativity + humor + sensitivity + joy.
Paid issue highlight:
For the Birds: Instructions for creative living
It was then that I knew I loved her, the way her poetry, because of who she is, asks us to remember the suffering of others. The fourth step is to notice that there is always space for more noticing, unplanned and unprepared for. And that eventually, beneath all noticing, is love.
A magical-creative prompt for you
The next time you find yourself with a potent question—think: the kind of thing you might turn toward divinatory practices for—consult instead your own past writing: either your journal, a blog post, or an old draft of something you think about with some frequency but haven’t worked on in years. Practice a kind of bibliomancy with your own writing! Read your words until you land on a sentence that makes your stomach feel a remarkable way. What does the feeling feel like, and why is it attached to that particular passage? What message does Past You have for Present You?
Tell me what the prompt brings up…
Or what inspired / challenged you while reading today’s letter. Your input is a gift!
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If you’re reading this via email, hit “reply” to keep the conversation one-on-one.
I know what you’re thinking, and no, I do NOT regularly have such pure and moving experiences of my own writing. It does happen, but it’s really hard to be knocked over by one’s own work, and I think there’s something humane and truthful, not disparaging or self-defeating, about this fact.
Still, I’m planting little energetic seeds into the universe, inviting the possibility that, alongside my resiliency and self-trust, I might bowl myself over every now and again. I’m planting these seeds for you, too.
Thank you. It is always an interesting conversation talking about ourselves before, during, and after we write. I imagine it is difficult to write something once and be done with it. There are few "first takes" when shooting a movie. We finish a conversation and then add later. "This is what I meant to say." "I want to add one more thing." We change every day, sometimes within a day, so the person who wrote yesterday may return to the piece and tweak or totally change the writing based on all sorts of inputs, dreams, and simply a different perspective. I find it enjoyable to return to ancient writings and wonder, "What was I thinking?" or "I wish I felt that way today." There is a great satisfaction to be stumped by a crossword puzzle only to return to it and out of the ether comes the correct word.